Context sections outline

Research question: What aspects of The Birmingham Campaign articulated the identities of the protest, which were black people affected by segregation, and what were the repercussions in American history of this protest?

Historical Context Section Outline

Paragraph 1

·      Purpose: This paragraph will explore the equality struggle of African Americans from the past centuries.

·      Source(s):

o   Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives

Paragraph 2

·      Purpose: This paragraph will narrow the focus of the equality struggle starting in the late 1930s by focusing on racial narratives and dilemmas. This paragraph will also focus on the role black educators played in the Campaign, as desegregation was one of the facets of the protest.

·      Source(s):

o   The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past

o   Schoolhouse Activists: African American Educators and the Long Birmingham Civil Rights Movement

Paragraph 3

·      Purpose: This paragraph will discuss black history and the role black people had in the movement, as this gives context to the segregation that the black protestors were fighting against.

·      Source(s):

o   What is African American History?

o   The Civil Rights Movement

Paragraph 4

·      Purpose: This paragraph delves into the repercussions of what occurred in Birmingham and how this added to the black freedom struggle in the years after the movement officially ended.

·      Source(s):

o   Birmingham and the Long Black Freedom Struggle

o   Newspaper article “In The Nation”

o   Newspaper article “Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute Personalizes a Struggle”

Rhetorical Context Section Outline

Paragraph 1

·      Purpose: This paragraph will discuss the Birmingham Campaign in terms of action, intention, structure, and constraints, which contributed to the language of the Campaign.

·      Source(s):

o   Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements

Paragraph 2

·      Purpose: This paragraph will explore how the rhetoric of the Birmingham Campaign led up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

·      Source(s):

o   Local Protest and Federal Policy: The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Paragraph 3

·      Purpose: This paragraph discusses the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Act as soon as it was passed. This is rhetorical context because one of the articles (“In the Nation”) was written the day after the legislation was passed and shows how people talked about this historical moment.

·      Source(s):

o   Newspaper article “In The Nation”

o   Newspaper article “Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute Personalizes a Struggle”

o   MLK’s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"